Pope considering Egypt trip…Read full details

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This handout picture released by the Vatican press office shows Pope Francis (L) and members of Rome's curia leaving Ariccia by bus on the last day of a spiritual retreat, on March 10, 2017 near Rome.<br />HO / OSSERVATORE ROMANO / AFP

The Vatican is examining the possibility of Pope Francis visiting Egypt, but no dates have been set, his spokesman said Saturday after Italian reports suggested the trip would happen in May.

“A trip by the Holy Father to Egypt is under study but neither dates nor a programme have been finalised,” the spokesman, Greg Burke, said in a statement.

Italy’s national broadcaster RAI had claimed that Pope Francis would visit Cairo from May 20-21 and that his programme would include a stop at the Al-Azhar university and mosque complex.

The pope hosted the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayeb, at the Vatican last May, in a landmark meeting with one of Islam’s top clerics.

That encounter was the culmination of a steady improvement in a relationship that had broken down because of a series of spats under Francis’s predecessor Benedict XVI.

The current pope has made interfaith dialogue and reconciliation a leading theme of his pontificate and has also overseen an improvement in relations with the Orthodox and Protestant wings of Christianity.

The Argentine pope has a long-standing invitation to visit Egypt, issued by President President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi when he met Francis at the Vatican in 2014.

Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian conference of bishops, reported last month that an invitation had also been received from the Coptic Patriarch in Alexandria.

Any trip would be fraught with security concerns but those did not prevent the 80-year-old pontiff from visiting Bangui, the conflict-scarred capital of the Central African Republic in November 2015.

Francis confirmed he was expecting to visit Egypt soon in an interview with German daily Die Zeit that was published on Thursday.

Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican cardinal who deals with interfaith dialogue, visited Al-Azhar in February in the latest of a series of meetings between the two institutions.

Presuming the visit goes ahead, Francis will become the second Roman Catholic pope to visit Egypt, following John Paul II’s historic trip there in February 2000.

Relations were derailed under Benedict after rows over a 2006 speech in which he was seen as having linked Islam to violence and 2011 comments condemning an attack on a Coptic church in Alexandria which Al-Azhar denounced as meddling in Egypt’s affairs.

As things stand, Francis has only two overseas trips scheduled this year, one to the Fatima shrine in Portugal in April and one in September to Colombia.

Vía Uzomedia http://ift.tt/2lO8dLj

FC Ifeanyi Ubah U-15 coaches return from La Liga coaching course

Pope makes historic visit to Rome Anglican church…Read full details

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Pope Francis attends a ceremony during his visit to the All Saints' Anglican Church in Rome on February 26, 2017. FILIPPO MONTEFORTE / AFP

Pope Francis attended a service at the All Saints’ Church in Rome on Sunday, becoming the first pontiff in history to visit an Anglican church in the Italian capital.

Francis’s visit marked the 200th anniversary of the All Saints’ church, furthering a rapprochement between the Vatican and the Anglican Church of England that began last year.

In a further sign of the closer ties, the pope spoke of the “possibility” of a visit to troubled South Sudan with the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, his Anglican counterpart.

Pope Francis added that such a visit would only be for a single day “because the situation is difficult there”.

South Sudan, which only gained nationhood in 2011, has been engulfed since 2013 by a civil war which has left thousands dead and three million people displaced.

“As Catholics and Anglicans, we are humbly grateful that, after centuries of mutual mistrust, we are now able to recognizee that the fruitful grace of Christ is at work also in others,” the pope said in a sermon on Sunday.

“Today we can be encouraged by our gathering.”

Closer ties with other faiths and branches of Christianity have been a priority for Francis since he became pope in 2013.

Last October, he attended a special service in Rome with Welby to mark the 50th anniversary of the first joint prayer of a Catholic pontiff and a head of the Church of England.

The service marked the historic meeting between then archbishop Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI.

The Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic church under British King Henry VIII in the 16th Century, and Anglicans have not recognised the pontiff as their spiritual leader since then.

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Mkhitaryan secures United progress despite injury

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Manchester's United's Armenian forward Henrikh Mkhitaryan celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal during the UEFA Europa League football match between AS Saint-Etienne and Manchester United on February 22, 2017, at the Geoffroy Guichard stadium in Saint-Etienne, central France.<br />PHILIPPE DESMAZES / AFP

Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored but was then forced off with a hamstring injury as Manchester United cruised into the Europa League last 16 with a 1-0 win at St Etienne on Wednesday.

That completed a 4-0 aggregate victory in the last 32 tie, although United finished the match with 10 men after Eric Bailly was dismissed for two yellow cards in quick succession.

Manager Jose Mourinho will face an anxious wait ahead of Sunday’s English League Cup final against Southampton at Wembley to see if his Armenian playmaker is fit.

Mkhitaryan has been involved in five goals — scoring three and creating two — in his last six games and would have been a likely starter at Wembley.

Despite leading 3-0 from the first leg at Old Trafford last week, Mourinho showed how highly he values success in this competition — which offers a route into next season’s Champions League to the winners — by picking a strong starting line-up.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba were restored to the starting line-up after making a decisive contribution off the bench against Blackburn in the FA Cup on Sunday — the Frenchman teeing up the Swede to score the winning goal.

There was none of the early match defensive jitters from United, and centre-back Bailly in particular, that had brought a rebuke from Mourinho following the first leg in which he accused his players of not having been focussed enough.

And it took just 16 minutes for United to extinguish any fanciful hopes the hosts might have harboured of mounting a memorable comeback — when the opening goal came, it was almost too easy.

Juan Mata used Daley Blind as a decoy to make space for himself down the left and his pinpoint cross was met by Mkhitaryan, dissecting the home centre-halves, to flick past the helpless Stephane Ruffier in the home goal.

By then the visitors had already established control of the ball in midfield and looked comfortable spraying it around patiently.

Mourinho was forced into an early change as Mkhitaryan seemed to tweak his hamstring and was replaced by Marcus Rashford on 25 minutes.

– Roared on –
United looked by far the more dangerous of the two sides but St Etienne did sound a warning from a set-piece seven minutes from the break as Jordan Veretout picked out Loic Perrin, only for the captain to head straight at Sergio Romero, celebrating his 30th birthday.

It was, at least, the Ligue 1 side’s first effort on target over the two legs.

Roared on by a passionate home crowd at the Stade Geoffroy Guichard, St Etienne played with energy at the start of the second half but it was United who should have doubled their lead as Marouane Fellaini fired into the side-netting when well placed.

Things got interesting just after the hour mark as Bailly was sent-off for picking up two bookings in three minutes — the second when he clearly won the ball in a challenge with Romain Hamouma — much to Mourinho’s obvious annoyance.

Mourinho had to quickly rejig, with centre-back Marcus Rojo replacing Mata and United shutting up shop.

St Etienne were reduced to Florentin Pogba, Paul’s brother, trying his luck with a volley from 30 yards that sailed wide, summing up their impotency in front of goal over the two legs.

Rashford’s pace was causing St Etienne problems and he clipped a ball over the top from Blind across the face of goal.

Tougher nights in Europe than this await United, but at least it gave them a chance to quickly turn their attention to Southampton.

Vía The Guardian Nigeria http://ift.tt/2md8ioB